My most recent sour turned out great! Strawberry Rhubarb kettle sour this time around.

I've been brewing kettle sours in 2.5 gallon batches roughly every month since I started brewing around 6 months ago, and this may have been my favourite yet.

I brew my kettle sours with extract because a) I'm lazy, and b) I haven't noticed any real difference between doing an actual BIAB brew with these.

The recipe:

• 3 lbs Briess Golden Light DME brought just to a boil for ~ 5 mins for sanitation purposes.

• Cool to 90F, pitch 3 probiotic pills (all l.plantarum) into wort, recover kettle with lid

• Leave kettle alone at room temperature from anywhere between 3-6 days (I don't use a PH meter, but it must self-terminate at some point because I've seen no difference past 3ish days at room temp)

• Bring wort back to a boil for ~10 mins to kill off lacto

• Rack to fermenter, pitch Safale US05 yeast

• When primary is more or less finished after a week, I added 1 lb frozen chopped strawberries, 1 lb frozen chopped rhubarb, and a tsp of pectic enzyme. I put the fruit in a strainer bag for easy retrieval.

• Let rest on fruit for ~1 week, pull the bag, rack, prime and bottle

Two weeks later, this is wonderfully refreshing and incredibly crushable. Sweet strawberry on the start follows up with the sour twang of the lacto and the rhubarb, and finishes tasting like strawberry rhubarb pie.

I've brewed this recipe with mango / pineapple, blueberry / tangerine, and a dry-hopped version with Falconer's Flight / raspberry, and I can't keep them on hand long enough - my friends clean me out. This recipe definitely does get better in the bottle with time (anytime I've managed to keep any stashed, anyway). I will definitely start doing this one in larger batches once I update my kettle! The recipe is so insanely easy that it almost feels like cheating - the sours always turn out juicy, fruity, and tart - if not incredibly interesting due to the non-existent grain bill and lack of other bacteria. As a note, I typically don't use pectic enzyme, but for this batch with the rhubarb I thought it might be a good idea.

Picture here - it does typically have a short-lived head.